Six wounded in explosions in Mindanao

Six people were wounded in separate explosions in Cotabato City and in Pigkawayan, North Cotabato last week.

Last Thursday (March 1), three people were injured after an improvised explosive device (IED) blasted along Governor Gutierrez Avenue in Cotabato City last Thursday (March 1). The bomb was placed in front of the gate of the regional office of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), just several blocks away from the ARMM compound.

The victims, identified as Bainot Pasandalan, Pendewata Sandigan and Joseph Tiongson, were immediately rushed to the hospital.

Cotabato City administrator Atty. Cynthia Guiani Sayadi, the sister of Cotabato Mayor Japal Guiani Jr., was quoted in television reports as saying that she may have been the target of the attack.

Around 6:30 a.m. Saturday (March 3), two explosions shook again Cotabato City. This time, the compound housing offices of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was rocked with a blast, some 100 meters from the gates of the ARMM compound. The wounded civilian, Ibrahim Ismael, 18, was rushed to a hospital. Responding bomb experts later found nearby another improvised bomb fashioned from an 81-millimeter mortar shell and a grenade.

A day earlier, two men riding-in-tandem hurled an improvised explosive device at heavy equipment along the national highway of Barangay Balogo in Pigkawayan in North Cotabato.

According to local police, the employees of China International Water & Electric Corp. have received extortion letters from anonymous people.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has condemned the blasts. Sheik Muhammad Muntassir, head of the Da’wah Committee of the MILF, told Luwaran that the explosions that rocked Cotabato City and the municipality of Pigkawayan in North Cotabato were the handiwork of criminal mind that has no place in civilized society.